Eternium - Unity Development Update #1

[Ariant]

Thank you, Travis. Can't be patient for update dan upgrade the level of the game. All of you in team is amazing.

[Travis | Support Mgr.]

If you're referring to the Unity version of the game, then yes, we are definitely taking device performance into consideration by looking at the range of devices (chipsets, GPUs, RAM, etc.) our current Eternium players use.

If you're referring to the upcoming update to the live (Marmalade) version of the game, then you have nothing to worry about - nothing will change there. If anything, it will get better for low performance devices as the team is constantly optimizing the game wherever they can.

[Ariant]

Just hoping that update can playing with low entry device mobile.

[Tin Man]

Based upon what has been announced so far? They need to drop that update outside of a season and before a season icon even shows since the leaderboards go active as soon as the icon shows even though the season itself has not yet started.

StGeorge688 Do not hold your breath on pretty much everything that you mentioned until after the game is ported to Unity. What do you hope to achieve with a separate leaderboard for mobile?

[StGeorge688]

It has been so long waiting for several fixes that impact the game (Scatter gun, Armory, AD reward removed with out a replacement, stuck out of bounds, separate LB for mobile as well as many others) that I would like them to concentrate on the new platform. Hopefully they just eliminate PvP that is a joke and do not implement some silly buffs that affect normal play.

We’ll have another release out in a few weeks

Easy to miss this first time reading. Wonder whether it'll be some more low hanging bug fixes or some of the balance changes Travis asked us all about. Will be interesting to see what is released

[WarriorSeven]

Wow ... This simply looks awesome so far! And the teasing with the enhanced features and UI simply makes me salivate for more!

And thanks for also introducing the team to us, putting faces to the names. I think I can speak for many if not most users here, but we can't wait to try out what appears to be an exciting, refreshed game by all the hard-working Devs and support folks!

And thanks to the entire Dream Primer and Making Fun teams super effort in managing the no-doubt difficult, long-awaited upgrade and improvement to what will remain as THE BEST aRPG game out there! Wishing continued success and good luck in the future launch to you all!

Thank you for sharing and showing some info around the team working on this major, it's clear there's a lot of talent and experience going into the rebuild. Seeing some of the ideas and concepts for the new modern look of Act 1 map 1 shows there is real potential for a modern looking game with great new graphics and assets. I'm assuming there will be new graphics options / settings coming later in the process, for example high quality water textures can look stunning on desktops but can really slow down mobile devices (or indeed the sort of potatoes I tend to play on!).

I honestly wasn't expecting to see too much before Q4 at the earliest, so thanks again for sharing and I'm looking forward to future announcements.

[John Welch | CEO]

Here is a video presenting an update on the state of development of the Unity rebuild of Eternium, narrated by Josh Quick, Head of Games at Making Fun.

The original Eternium, developed by Dream Primer, is one of the top-rated mobile games ever, with 4.8 stars and millions upon millions of positive reviews. With Dream Primer's support, Making Fun, the original publisher, is now rebuilding Eternium in the latest version of the Unity game engine so it can entertain fans of classic action RPG gameplay for the next decade and more.

A LOT had to happen to get from a blank Unity project to what you see in the video. Progress has been swift, as we have experienced Unity developers who have the original Eternium assets and data to leverage and the Eternium Marmalade C/C++ source code to reference. Still, there is an immense amount to absorb when a new team picks up the work of another studio that has been working diligently for a decade. Not only picking up development, but starting over on a completely new engine/architecture. This is going to take a while! That is why we are also investing time in continuing to update the live version of Eternium. (We’ll have another release out in a few weeks.)

This past month marked our transition from a heavily experimental "pre-production" phase of development into an early production phase. To quantify this a bit, previously most of our efforts were explorations and experiments necessary to figure out how to proceed. Now, we are at 80% of our Engineering time being invested building items necessary for the initial release, heading to 90% shortly, while only about 10% will be experimental.

While Engineering is pushing ahead with production tasks, Art is still experimenting with new ways to create and improve content and player experience before switching gears to new asset production. This includes areas like terrain, visual effects, and the UI.

The team has been working towards a formal "first playable" milestone, which we will complete in early May. Expected features for this deliverable include:

• Navigate from Hometown into level 1, complete level 1, enter portal, return to Hometown
• Play with the Mage character including Fireball and Immolate abilities
• Touch / keyboard / mouse controls (gamepad and gestures will be in the next milestone)
• Updated UI for gameplay (while in a level)
• Emphasis on Windows & Mac for internal testing with builds also available on iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets

The development process for this project is atypical in that we already have ALL the Eternium content imported into the game. Usually, the first playable presents only a thin vertical slice of gameplay. That's why we are focusing on the list above: to make sure we capture the visceral feel of Eternium very early in the project. We will not move on to polish level two or Act II until level one looks and feels absolutely amazing.

We waited a while to give this first update as we wanted to eliminate most of the technical risk before starting much of a conversation about the new game. Now, we feel confident that we will be able to share progress on a regular basis. With that in mind, you can expect another update along with a video of gameplay of level one in Unity in a couple of weeks… after the next live Eternium release is complete and available on all platforms.

John